The Winter Mage · Book TwoDawn Clan does not bend. Not to the emperor's whims, not to the undead that press against the Neck every winter, and not to grief.General Gohei has served Emperor Fukakusa all his life, and it has cost him everything he loved. Now the peninsula's clans are gathering to break the Obsidian fortress, and the emperor — vain, clever, and never braver than the men around him — has decided that Gohei's wife will lead the assault.W...

In a peninsula splintered among feuding clans, power runs in blood — and magic answers to only a chosen few.Linnard is a highborn son raised behind castle walls: sheltered, soft, and wholly unready for the world sharpening its knives beyond them. When the fragile truce between the clans begins to fracture, he is thrown from the practice yard into the path of a widening war.Years on the march teach him the blade, the price of loyalty, and the weight of a name he never asked ...

Jamie Guillaume is the man your mother warned you about, and South Africa’s wickedest man is about to raise more than hell. Haunted by the sinister Burning One and hunted by a pack of religious extremists, Jamie’s neck-deep in trouble.Who does a black magician turn to when it seems like his carefully constructed world’s about to disintegrate?

A class outing to a botanical garden goes horribly wrong; a vampire survives the zombiepocalypse in the Mother City; a woman confronts a child’s ghost in an empty house—these are but a few of Nerine Dorman’s stories that have drifted between the cracks and lodged themselves in dusty corners.

A boy pursues a machine across a desert; a Grabouw butcher discovers a secret ingredient to make the best sausage in town; and a seamstress seeks fabric of an unconventional nature to stitch together the garment of her dreams.The South African Horrorfest Bloody Parchment anthology, edited by Nerine Dorman, returns with a dozen chilling stories featuring finalists from the 2016 short story competition: Brett Rex Bruton, Janine Milne, Stephen Embleton, William Burger, Shaun van Rensb...

Foolish girl! You claim to be my priestess? How hard can it be to fetch a simple loop of iron?You have held my torc in your hand twice… Each time it has slipped through delicate fingers.There was a moment when a thought might have brought you to me, but instead, you fling yourself halfway around the world and lose the torc in the bargain!For an instant you held it, and I believed we might both be free of the Serpent, but you will need him now, and other allies besid...

What is true evil? How do you fight it? Since she was little, Lada wanted to be part of the Order of Fennarin, one of the warrior-monks who are the last bastion in a war against the demons and insurgents that threaten her island home. Yet to achieve her dream, Lada turned blood traitor, her decision leading to the death and exile of her family. Her betrayal comes to haunt her now, ten years later, when her elders demand that she oversees her brother Ailas’s trial. Lada feared him lost fore...

How long have the stars been the same?Longer than weary eyes may count.Tonight, a wanderer burns on the surface of Khusu's pool, and soon all other lights will seem pale.How many ages have rolled since the gods have seen a sail from the world beyond? The rising sun shall rob them of their isolation.My time is coming. They called me fool, but none have known my pain. The pattern shifts; neither man nor god may know its final weaving.What some call madness,...

The first time Lizzie dies is a learning experience. Then again, anyone new to an ancient Egyptian reincarnation cult would have no idea what to expect once they've made it past the Hall of Judgment.Now that she's been sent back to find out why her husband from her past life is missing, the last thing Lizzie expects is to wake up in the wrong body, stuck with the mess its previous tenant left behind. In fact, she's in agreement that whoever ran Ashton Kennedy over with a big shiny ...

All Jamie wants is to get his life back on track. After all, no self-respecting occultist needs entanglement with a pack of fanatical Christo-militants. Nor does he want blood on his hands – innocent or not. But the nightmare is far from over. Now a fresh brand of hell is stalking the shadows in dreams, and young women are dying in violent ritual killings.Can Jamie master his uneasy symbiosis with the sinister Burning One, get to the bottom of a rash of cult activity and stay one s...

Benedetto de Lyse can pick nearly any lock in the delta city of Ardent. As a common thief and lowly henchman of one of the city's shadow princes, his options to move up in the world are limited. Which makes his fascination with the charming Alessandra all the more tragic. She's a daughter of one of the merchant princes, and there's no way he'll ever be able to unlock her heart. Hell, she doesn't even know that he exists.Yet when a rival organisation threatens to kidnap the princess...

In Terra Incognita, Short Story Day Africa is proud to present nineteen stories of speculative fiction. Contained within the pages are stories that explore, among other things, the sexual magnetism of a tokoloshe, a deadly feud with a troop of baboons, a journey through colonial purgatory, along with ghosts, re-imagined folklore, and the fear of that which lies beneath both land and water. Terra Incognita. Uncharted depths. Africa unknowable.